-Thank you for inviting me

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        Bill Siksay MP (Burnaby-Douglas)
     NDP Citizenship and Immigration Critic
                  Speech to the
      Career Training and Employment Fair
   Choi Hall, Dorothy Lam Building, Vancouver
             Saturday, 16 June 2007

Note: I was asked by the organizers to speak for ten
minutes at the opening ceremonies on the issue of
international credentials. However, it was clear at the event
that folks really wanted to have conversations with potential
employers and potential employees, and that long speeches
just weren’t a good idea. Instead I welcomed visitors, wished
them good luck in finding jobs and employees, and suggested
they visit my web site to read the speech I wanted to make.
This is the text of the speech I prepared.


I want to thank the organizers for inviting me.

I’d also like to bring greetings from the Parliament
of Canada, and especially from my NDP colleagues
on the Lower Mainland, Libby Davies, Peter Julian,
Dawn Black, and Penny Priddy, and our leader, Jack
Layton.

I want to thank the sponsoring groups for the work
you do. The Association of Chinese Canadian
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Professionals was key to organizing this event and
has shown great leadership in the community.
SUCCESS provides assistance to thousands of
people, helping every day in so many different
ways. And I want to thank Sing Tao, for its
commitment to the people of the Lower Mainland
and its excellent coverage of the events of the day
that are important to our community.

I’ve been asked to say a few words about the
recognition of international credentials.

This is clearly a serious problem here in Canada.
People here today know the terrible cost of failing
to recognize the education and experience of
foreign trained professionals. There is a personal
cost-it’s a spiritual crisis when people can’t do the
work to which they feel called or work in
professions that they have worked so hard to join.
But there is also the huge economic cost in the
billions of dollars to the Canadian economy. There
is also the cost to the reputation of our country
and to our immigration programme, as the word
gets around of the difficulty of working in Canada.
And we must not forget the cost to countries
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around the world as professionals who are
desperately needed and often in short supply are
scooped up by Canada and then not allowed to work
in their field when they arrive here.

Solutions seem to have eluded successive Canadian
governments. I acknowledge that it is a
complicated problem of competing jurisdictions.
There are apparently at least 14 federal
departments, 10 provinces with multiple
departments, self-governing professional
associations, unions, colleges, and universities who
all have an interest or jurisdiction in this matter.
It has often felt to me, in the time I’ve been in
Ottawa, that government often threw its hands up
in the air in frustration at the complexity and then
gave up on finding a solution.

It should be acknowledged that the current
government has taken a step. The opposition
politician in me wants to say a small step and a step
that was less than I think we understood they
promised at the last election, but they have at
least done something. They’ve established a
Foreign Credentials Referral Office and with some
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accompanying programmes such as phone service,
services through Service Canada offices, better
online information, and increased assistance to
employers. They’ve also set up some overseas
services with pilot projects in India, China, and the
Philippines to assist folks before they arrive in
Canada. These are good if limited things.

I would contend that more immigrant professionals
haven’t been stymied in getting work in their field
because they haven’t been able to find out which
doors to knock on. They haven’t been stymied by a
lack of referrals. They’ve been stymied because
when they knock on a door it either doesn’t open
for them, or it closes quickly behind them. So a
Referral Agency really begs the question of the
problem.

What to do instead?

We need programmes--permanent programmes--
that actually put people to work and actually
provided jobs. We’ve had many terrific pilot
projects that have paired immigrants with
employers, often leading to full time job offers at
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the end of the project. We’ve had terrific
mentorship and bridging programmes that have
helped immigrant professionals establish the kind
of network they actually helps them make the
connections that lead to a job. We need more
residencies and internships, because we know that
when foreign professionals get the foot in the door
it is possible for them to work in their field. We
need to turn pilot projects into permanent, well-
funded programmes. And we need increased
resources for English as a Second Language
training at a professional level-this barrier can be
solved, but it requires an investment on the part of
the government. We also need programmes that
work with Canadian employers so they appreciate
the benefits of hiring foreign trained
professionals.

But we also need to look at the point system in our
immigration application process. We can’t afford
to waste the talents and education of foreign
trained professionals. If we will not let them work
in Canada, we must stop giving them the points in
the immigration point system that facilitates their
arrival in Canada. It’s unfair and unjust to do so.
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The point system and application process amounts
to a promise-we promise that education and skills
and experience are valued by Canada, and then we
reneg on that promise when immigrants aren’t
allowed to work in their field.

We must fix that problem. We could tie points to
ability to work in Canada as we have done before
and make the link between points and actual ability
to go to work on arrival in Canada.

We must maintain our commitment to immigration.
There is renewed emphasis on temporary foreign
workers in Canada. Their numbers are growing
dramatically. But one of Canada’s great successes
in immigration is that we, perhaps more than any
other country, have encouraged immigration, we’ve
encouraged permanent residency and we’ve then
encouraged immigrants and permanent residents to
become citizens of Canada. It is my understanding
that our rate of turning permanent residents into
citizens is twice that of the United States, for
example. This is something to be proud of.
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Canada has also avoided the problems of European
countries who have had guest worker policies.
These policies have failed to develop a sense of
attachment for newcomers to their new country of
residence, and an attachment beyond the
exploitation of labour between the country and the
guest worker. The result has been many social
problems and even unrest, that are far from our
experience in Canada. We must maintain our
commitment to immigration that leads to
citizenship over guest worker programmes. Canada
can afford to increase the number of immigrants
we accept each year, and we should do so
immediately.

The issue of the recognition of foreign credentials
and the overall success of our immigration
programme is crucial for immigrants to Canada.
But it is also crucial to Canada.

We know that all growth in the job market will
come strictly from immigration by the middle of
the next decade, and we know that all population
growth will come solely from immigration by the
2020s. Our economy and our social programmes
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directly depend on the success of our immigration
programme.

We must find a solution to the serious problems
that face our immigration system. Failure already
has disastrous consequences for many individuals
who can’t work in their chosen field. Continued
failure will have disastrous consequences for
Canada.

None of these problems are insurmountable. I
know everyone here is ready to be part of the
solution.

Thank you again for inviting. Have a terrific
Career Training and Employment Fair, and good
luck in finding a great job and a terrific employee.